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OrcusOfUndeath
2012-12-05, 09:00 PM
I want to make an item that will give the players potions in return for a number of health points or constitution points. What would be a good exchange rate? I am having serious balance issues.

Vadskye
2012-12-06, 12:12 AM
Let's do a ludicrously back-of-the-envelope calculation to get a ballpark estimate for what sort of range is appropriate. To get an idea of what would be appropriate, I'm going to compare this hypothetical item to the cost of creating the potion normally.

Permanently losing hit points is similar to losing a level, except that it's obviously not as bad (since you keep class features, and so on). On the other hand, once you go down a level, you gain XP faster, and eventually you can come close to catching up to what you originally "should" be at; hit points sacrificed in this way are gone forever (which is one reason why this hypothetical item is a really bad idea... but that's not my job to judge!) On the other hand, creating potions in the normal way uses up money which is gone forever, while this item grants potions for "free". Let's assume, for no particular reason except that it's convenient and close enough to reasonable that it doesn't make much of a difference, that all these factors roughly balance out, and we can just treat the hit points and gold lost for going down a level by crafting potions normally as being roughly equivalent to the hit points lost by this magical item.

With that in mind, let's assume we're a sixth level character trying to make level-appropriate (3rd level spell) potions. Let's say that this character has a d8 hit die and a 14 Constitution; not unusual assumptions, by any stretch. The normal XP cost to create such a potion would be 30, plus half the material component cost of the spell. It would take 5,000 XP to drop that character by a full level. That means that the character could craft approximately 166 potions with that level, which would reduce them by 6.5 hit points on average. In other words, losing 6.5 hit points would be roughly equivalent to making 166 3rd level potions. That's about 25 3rd-level potions per hit point. Alternately, the character could make 2,500 1st-level potions with the same XP. That's 384 1st-level potions per hit point.

You can see how sacrificing hit points for potions is slightly bizarre. Even if you assume that losing a level is twice as bad as losing the appropriate amount of hit points, you're still not looking at a good tradeoff.

Saidoro
2012-12-06, 12:32 AM
I think he may have meant taking temporary damage, not permanently decreasing your stats. This, of course, winds up being completely broken in the other direction when the party takes a day off and has the cleric prepare heal and restoration a whole bunch of times and then sells off the haul to some unsuspecting shopkeeper.

Yeah... this doesn't really work at all unless the potions have some sort of time limit on them. Daily resources for daily resources, not permanent for one-shot or daily for permanent.

TuggyNE
2012-12-06, 02:55 AM
How fast does this creation happen?


I think he may have meant taking temporary damage, not permanently decreasing your stats. This, of course, winds up being completely broken in the other direction when the party takes a day off and has the cleric prepare heal and restoration a whole bunch of times and then sells off the haul to some unsuspecting shopkeeper.

And that's not even counting Naberius or Persisted mass lesser vigor. :smalleek:

OrcusOfUndeath
2012-12-06, 08:49 AM
Let's do a ludicrously back-of-the-envelope calculation to get a ballpark estimate for what sort of range is appropriate. To get an idea of what would be appropriate, I'm going to compare this hypothetical item to the cost of creating the potion normally.

Permanently losing hit points is similar to losing a level, except that it's obviously not as bad (since you keep class features, and so on). On the other hand, once you go down a level, you gain XP faster, and eventually you can come close to catching up to what you originally "should" be at; hit points sacrificed in this way are gone forever (which is one reason why this hypothetical item is a really bad idea... but that's not my job to judge!) On the other hand, creating potions in the normal way uses up money which is gone forever, while this item grants potions for "free". Let's assume, for no particular reason except that it's convenient and close enough to reasonable that it doesn't make much of a difference, that all these factors roughly balance out, and we can just treat the hit points and gold lost for going down a level by crafting potions normally as being roughly equivalent to the hit points lost by this magical item.

With that in mind, let's assume we're a sixth level character trying to make level-appropriate (3rd level spell) potions. Let's say that this character has a d8 hit die and a 14 Constitution; not unusual assumptions, by any stretch. The normal XP cost to create such a potion would be 30, plus half the material component cost of the spell. It would take 5,000 XP to drop that character by a full level. That means that the character could craft approximately 166 potions with that level, which would reduce them by 6.5 hit points on average. In other words, losing 6.5 hit points would be roughly equivalent to making 166 3rd level potions. That's about 25 3rd-level potions per hit point. Alternately, the character could make 2,500 1st-level potions with the same XP. That's 384 1st-level potions per hit point.

You can see how sacrificing hit points for potions is slightly bizarre. Even if you assume that losing a level is twice as bad as losing the appropriate amount of hit points, you're still not looking at a good tradeoff.
I was talking about temporary drain. But I see your point entirely.


I think he may have meant taking temporary damage, not permanently decreasing your stats. This, of course, winds up being completely broken in the other direction when the party takes a day off and has the cleric prepare heal and restoration a whole bunch of times and then sells off the haul to some unsuspecting shopkeeper.

Yeah... this doesn't really work at all unless the potions have some sort of time limit on them. Daily resources for daily resources, not permanent for one-shot or daily for permanent.
Yes, I did mean temp damage. The time limit should be the way to fix it. That does put some balance into it.


How fast does this creation happen?

And that's not even counting Naberius or Persisted mass lesser vigor. :smalleek:

Haven't really set a time frame for that. I was thinking it should depend on the potion potency.

And I forgot to mention, we are playing Pathfinder.

Sir Swindle89
2012-12-06, 09:08 AM
You should probably cost it as an item that heals the most points this thing can make a potion per day and then subtract the cost for the equivalent castings of cure light wounds.

This probably comes out to way more gold than you would have intended to give them.

The potions should only last a call it 1d4 days for this to be resonable. and they should take a pretty big disguise/bluff check to pass them off as real potions. (say they are bubbly and black or somthing)

NichG
2012-12-06, 10:33 AM
You could do something between temporary and permanent. The potions represent investiture of those hp/Con points - they don't come back until the potion has been used, at which point they recover at the normal rate. This would discourage using the item to make money (since if that potion sits on a shelf forever it might as well be permanent loss), would not permanently hinder the characters, and might be an interesting tradeoff depending on the prices (though I could see the party paying a bunch of followers to perform the investment of hp so they can get potions and no hp loss)

Vadskye
2012-12-06, 01:16 PM
You could do something between temporary and permanent. The potions represent investiture of those hp/Con points - they don't come back until the potion has been used, at which point they recover at the normal rate. This would discourage using the item to make money (since if that potion sits on a shelf forever it might as well be permanent loss), would not permanently hinder the characters, and might be an interesting tradeoff depending on the prices (though I could see the party paying a bunch of followers to perform the investment of hp so they can get potions and no hp loss)

Blending temporary and permanent sounds like the right approach to me. You could do it even more simply by just saying that the potions only last for X days, which would prevent the characters from gaining permanent benefits from taking a month off to bleed out potions.

Wyntonian
2012-12-06, 01:38 PM
The question, I think, would be HP-GP exchange rate.

Also, it might be possible, depending on the exchange rate, to bleed out a CLW potion, drink it, and gain more HP than you spent. So.

OrcusOfUndeath
2012-12-06, 08:46 PM
You should probably cost it as an item that heals the most points this thing can make a potion per day and then subtract the cost for the equivalent castings of cure light wounds.

This probably comes out to way more gold than you would have intended to give them.

The potions should only last a call it 1d4 days for this to be reasonable. and they should take a pretty big disguise/bluff check to pass them off as real potions. (say they are bubbly and black or something)

You could do something between temporary and permanent. The potions represent investiture of those hp/Con points - they don't come back until the potion has been used, at which point they recover at the normal rate. This would discourage using the item to make money (since if that potion sits on a shelf forever it might as well be permanent loss), would not permanently hinder the characters, and might be an interesting tradeoff depending on the prices (though I could see the party paying a bunch of followers to perform the investment of hp so they can get potions and no hp loss)

Blending temporary and permanent sounds like the right approach to me. You could do it even more simply by just saying that the potions only last for X days, which would prevent the characters from gaining permanent benefits from taking a month off to bleed out potions.
Yes, this sounds like both could work. I am liking the limited amount of time better, as it sounds it could be more useful for the PCs. Perhaps limiting the amount of potions that can be taken per person as well, depending on the potion's CL?


The question, I think, would be HP-GP exchange rate.
Does anyone have some frame of reference to make this work? I mean a CLW potion is worth 50GP in Pathfinder and gets you a 1d8+1 HP.



Also, it might be possible, depending on the exchange rate, to bleed out a CLW potion, drink it, and gain more HP than you spent. So.
This is a concern for me. Maybe limiting the amount of potions that can be made per day is a good way to work around this? Or putting a limit to the total amount of HP that can be recovered via these potions?

NichG
2012-12-06, 09:43 PM
There are so many ways to heal that I'd say if you do anything but make the hitpoint damage 'sticky' somehow, you risk infinite potions if the only limit is their expiration date.

E.g. someone with the healing reserve feat, a dragon shaman with an aura, anyone with fast healing, anyone with healing as an at will SLA, or even someone who can trivially afford to burn a few Lesser Vigors, etc means that the party can generate potions much faster than natural healing would suggest. The Con damage is a better bet, but be careful to make it so you have to take the full damage to get the potion (or a Binder with DR vs Ability Damage, an Undead with no Con score, etc can make an arbitrary number of potions).

I guess right now the way I'd implement the item is as follows, though this may differ a lot from your original idea:

- The item allows someone to invest a certain number of hitpoints (from max hp) and Con points to have a certain set of potions be circulating 'in their blood' at all times (mechanically, they can activate the potion ability on themselves once every 5 minutes as a swift action). For a potion of a Lv0 spell this is 3hp. For a Lv1 spell it is 6hp and 1 Con. For a Lv2 spell it is 9hp and 2 Con. For a Lv3 spell it is 12hp and 3 Con. The caster level for this potion is 10. Once per day, each person may change the potions they have 'socketed' - if they choose to have fewer spell levels socketed their MaxHP and Con go back up.

This makes the system sort of like grafts, which give you powers in exchange for slightly decreasing your MaxHP. The costs are higher due to the increased versatility over grafts and the lack of need to pay for them.

Acanous
2012-12-06, 09:54 PM
Easy way to do it:

It costs the maximum number of hit points restorable by a healing potion of that level in order to craft a potion of that level. You still need to spend the magic and have the requisite feat, and this doesn't change crafting time.

Seriously, there's a lot of wealth loops, and you can cast spells for money (See spellcasting and services) in your downtime anyhow. If you're doing this instead, I'd deem that fair.

{table=head]Level|Healing|HP cost
1st|1d8+5|13
2nd|2d8+10|26
3rd|3d8+15|39
[/table]

It works out to 13 HP per level.

OrcusOfUndeath
2012-12-07, 10:08 AM
Thanks guys. The advice has been most helpful. I'll try to make a balanced item, but its gonna take some playtesting.